Three employees of the railway company that was involved in the deadly runaway train disaster at Lac-Megantic in Quebec last summer, incinerating 47 people and destroying the majority of a vibrant small town, are finally going to face a judge.

It took long enough. The completely preventable accident occurred about 10 months ago.

And it’s a crime that only a few people are being charged, and likely not the ones who set the accident in motion. Fortyseven counts of criminal negligence have been filed against engineer Thomas Harding, manager of train operations Jean Demaitre, and Richard Labrie, the railway’s traffic controller. Criminal negligence that causes death can result in a life sentence in Canada.

But the railway itself, Montreal, Maine and Atlantic, though a “person” according to U.S. law, will never go to jail for deciding that trains can be left on a steep hillside, running all night, after a fire had already broken out in the engine, without anyone at the helm. Nor will the top management who made what can only be called a “money decision” ever see the interior of a cell.

Edward A. Burkhardt, chairman of the board, will never see the inside of a courtroom. Nor will Robert Grindod, president and CEO. Nor will M. Donald Gardner, Jr., VP of finance and administration, and CFO.

Within weeks, the corporation filed for bankruptcy and protection from its creditors (read “victims and their families.”)

The railroad, which is in the process of being sold for nearly $16 million, is also “charged,” but what that means is a fine, if they can even levy one in light of the bankruptcy.

Nearly all of the funds recouped, if the sale is ever closed, will go to repay creditors, and the victims and their families aren’t even at the top of the list. MMA owed $27.5 million to the federal government for a loan, $6 million on a line of credit to another railroad, and $3.5 million to other creditors and tax authorities, including the fuel company J.D. Irving.

In 2010, the company cut train crews from two persons to one, installing remote control and cutting the entire workforce by half, to about 175, saving $4.5 million annually in wages.

The costs of the cleanup, reparation to victims and recovery of the oil in the water at Lac-Megantic is expected to cost about $200 million. The company only carried $25 million in liability insurance.

If one of us had caused an accident through sheer negligence that caused even one death and didn’t carry enough insurance to cover our liabilities, we wouldn’t have had 10 months to spend with our families, and be able to complain about being arrested 10 months later at home while he was getting ready to watch the Canadiens’ game, as Harding’s lawyer did on his client’s behalf on Tuesday.

The Lac-Megantic disaster, and MMA’s behavior leading up to the disaster and its immediate attempt to wriggle out of its obligations afterward, is a case study for why we need to rethink our nation’s “corporation as person” laws. Corporate personhood was established to allow companies to sign leases and contracts, not as a means to escape culpability in severe cases of obvious negligence.

Meanwhile, Lac-Megantic is moving on. The downtown cafe where most of the deaths occurred is being rebuilt; life is slowly returning after the tragedy.

But before it can heal completely, justice must be done. The shielding of corporate responsibility in cases like this must be the first head on the chopping block.